When Lulu Madison left Old Terrell High School in 1917, she knew she wanted to be somebody important, but exactly who she wasn’t sure. The smart and ambitious teenager growing up in the Jim Crow South may not have imagined what the future held in store for her; may not have imagined that one day she would be state director of the NAACP.

In Struggle Against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957 by Merline Pitre examines the life of this civil rights champion, beginning with her birth in Elmo, Texas, in 1900, her marriage to Houston businessman and activist Julius White and her graduation from Prairie View College.

On Monday, June 2, at 7:30 p.m., Texas PBS will present an online discussion with Pitre, giving readers the chance to learn more about this chapter of our state’s history. To participate, go to texasourtexas.texaspbs.org/book-club.

Lulu White’s struggles to secure rights for African American citizens included politics and voting, labor, education, social and economic reforms, and gender equality. After serving as director of NAACP’s youth council and opening chapters around the state, White became president of the Houston chapter in 1939 and state director of the NAACP in 1949. The week before her death in 1957, the national NAACP established the Lulu White Freedom Fund in her honor.

More discussions are coming up later this year for the Texas PBS Book Club. Here are some of the works that will be featured:Texas Women on the Cattle Trails, edited by Sara R. Massey; and Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin,Texas by Jeffrey Kerr.

The January 2014 discussion focused on America's War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on Their 150th Anniversaries, edited by Edward L. Ayers. That program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Texas PBS Online Book Club was formed by Texans who want more opportunities to learn and discuss our shared history. The book club meets online throughout the year and gives readers a chance to discuss topics with noted experts.

Past topics have included Governor Ann Richards, the role of Texas in the Civil War and the 1937 New London, Texas, school explosion.